DARPA’s Warrior Web exosuit gets a closeup on video

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For a while now, we’ve been hearing about DARPA’s attempts to realize their childhood warrior-suit fantasies — and if it happens to help soldiers a bit along the way, so much the better.

They’ve had to scale back their Aliens dock-loader dreams just a bit, however. What started out as a quest to create, in their words, a real-life Iron Man, has become the quest to create the world’s best hernia belt. Gone are the dreams of ton-lifting super-soldiers. Now DARPA is looking for much more realistic gains, and yesterday they released a video that shows with all-new detail how they plan to achieve them.

The Warrior Web suit started out with projects like the famously ostentatious photo below, but basic issues tripped it up. They might have been able to get one working well for a specific person, but the realities of designing a still, motor-assisted exo-skeleton made them ill-suited (woo!) for mass production. Joint misalignment and small repetitive stresses actually tended to create more injuries than they prevented. That’s when the priorities shifted from the ultimate in performance to the ultimate in comfort.

Today, we have the $2.4 million Warrior Web program.

The exo-skeleton must now be referred to as an exo-suit, since it contains no stiff parts whatsoever, and is designed to fit easily beneath standard-issue fatigues and never to restrict range of motion. We’ve been aware of the Warrior Web system for a while now, but shots have always been somewhat cryptic; we saw a guy wearing a thing that is allegedly helpful when trekking Afghanistan. Now, however, some of the mechanics are being put on display.

The video takes special care to highlight the lower legs on the suit, which heavily feature thick elastics connecting the heel to the leg. As the soldier steps forward, the elastics on the lagging foot tighten, presumably lending this pent-up energy to the soldier as he makes the next stroke forward. In this way, the body and equipment weight help to stretch the elastic, and the elastic helps to lift the weight. Back support is also a feature of the suit, redistributing the stress of a load more evenly about the body.

And, of course, the suit will assist with lifting. The extent to which the newer, softer Warrior Web can achieve this goal is unclear right now, but DARPA is dedicated to helping soldiers carrying loads up to 100 pounds. The video shows many of the key joints and support areas — if y0u can spot anything else new, let us know!